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"if one is familiar with the basics of economics" seems like a fairly large assumption to me here, what economics is a science now? To me it just looks like a w

"if one is familiar with the basics of economics" seems like a fairly large assumption to me here, what economics is a science now? To me it just looks like a working theory to explain the world and some of its fundamental assumptions (that the world is not zero sum) are dubious at best. Focusing on this problem we are discussing, how much can you control the effects of whar you consume other than by controlling how much? You might buy vegan patties in whole foods, but other than the fraction of your money that went to the direct purchase of energy or land for agriculture, the money just gets split between roughly the remainder of the economically contributing population. Thus as long as you consume, you only have partial power over it's good-faith nature, the remainder is controlled by how much the entire population (and businesses) act in good faith in general. If you really want to keep your hands clean then I see no way other than not to spend a single dime more than you absolutely need to for your survival. Everything else is morally ambiguous at best. And this statement that we absolutely need the economy to grow for continued prosperity is preposterous. It's clearly A method of continuing prosperity, and clearly a method that at least works. But it's not proven to be the only method and we better start inventing new ones that don't put all their money on what's basically a glorified Ponzi scheme that everyone's forced to play.

qsort 5y ago
> some of its fundamental assumptions (that the world is not zero sum) are dubious at best. ??? The world is very decidedly not zero sum, you don't need economics to tell you that. Zero-sum games are a particular case.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  Can you elaborate how the world is not zero sum? We live in a clearly round planet thats completely isolated except for a daily dose of sunlight. Again this sunlight isn't going to change. You might argue that it's not zero sum for practical purposes, but to me it looks very decidedly zero sum in many different dimensions (usable land, co2 release, fresh water, many minerals, list goes on).
  - qsort 5y ago
    onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat. But anyway. Utility isn't measured in amount of land used or CO2 emitted or minerals extracted. This is not a Starcraft game. Using land better increases the sum. Making energy production more efficient increases the sum. Zero-sum means that any of my gains is someone else's loss, which is not how any human society has ever worked. A zero-sum world implies that any form of human cooperation that isn't literally war is impossible, which doesn't empirically seem to be the case.
- throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
  The economy as a whole is definitely not a zero-sum game, there's plenty of evidence of that. However, that doesn't in any way invalidate the claim that parts of the economy are in fact zero-sum. How large are those zero-sum parts - 10%? 20%? 40%? 80%? Nobody truly knows. Needless to say, the optimal survival strategy in a world of 80% zero-sum is vastly different than in the 10% world. Also, although there's no data to back it up, I believe the zero-sum games as a proportion of our society are growing, and quite rapidly at that. It's a very worrying trend.
beyondcompute 5y ago
Did someone need to downvote me to disagree with my opinion? What kind of person are they? Now, some points. what economics is a science now Are you kidding? 3D-animation is not a science but you still can understand how it is done and what works better and what doesn’t. Economic life is a physical process that has been observed for quite a while and some patterns appear to have been understood. We may not be right in 100% of cases but the fact is, that consumption has been a crucial factor in (at least) some instances of economic growth in the past. how much can you control the effects of whar you consume other than by controlling how much That’s easy. By choosing alternative products/services. You boycott companies that are not doing too good of a job and support those (“vote with your wallet”) that you believe to be doing better. You might buy vegan patties… That part looks a bit confusing to me. But in my example I was talking about things that I deem “actually relevant to moral questions”. (It depends how you define the term “moral”, I suppose). But to me a life of a sentient being that has individuality trumps many other concerns related to political ideologies, people’s convenience, etc. you only have partial power over it's good-faith nature “Its nature”. I do not think that this part of the argument looks so clearly-defined. What is “partial” versus “non-partial”? To me it’s all “partial” and it’s “good enough”. I’ll take “partial” any day! Besides, in any case you still need to eat and you still need to make those choices. If you really want to keep your hands clean That’s definitely not the ultimate goal or a cornerstone of my ethics or “philosophy”. In general I am fairly concerned with people who pay too much attention to “cleanliness” or “purity”. Not really an argument, just a note. :) more than you absolutely need to for your survival I think, it’s really cruel to expect someone to spend their lives only at physical survival level. People do have needs beyond physical. So it makes it necessary to spend “beyond that level” and therefore it makes this “morally ambiguous act” necessary. But that’s what I said! We are back to a “very general philosophical level” and we are discussing that “(almost) everything is morally ambiguous”. Yes, I agree with that. (But I also think that it’s a fairly useless question compared to a very practical question, “Do we need to consume to make our friends’ parents live longer and happier?”) we absolutely need the economy to grow for continued prosperity Could you define “continued prosperity”? Do you propose to just stay at the same level we are on already? Or do you propose to go back to a level where many people with serious diseases (who depend on high-tech medicine and equipment) to survive every day will not survive? By the way, I was not speaking about “continued prosperity”. I was talking about “better prosperity”. There’s too much suffering in the world currently in my opinion! We need better medical technologies, we need “cultured meat”, we need robotic helpers for old lonely people, we need to make Earth-born life multi-planetary (or multi-space-habitat) otherwise it will be gone in several hundred million years! Again, opinion. Please don’t “argue” with that! preposterous Preposterous means “utterly absurd”. You could argue that the statement is dubious probably. But to call it “absurd” right away… The statement might actually be true. It might actually be “the only way for societies on certain stages”. It's clearly A method I agree with this! Meaning, it might not be the _only_ method. There might be some nano-robots that make stuff for people out of the air and then no one needs to compete and do unpleasant work and everything is so good, yadda yadda. a glorified Ponzi scheme Now that’s actually interesting. Do you have links to any serious works which show that economic growth (in all circumstances) is 100% a Ponzi scheme? Because when there’s such a scheme in an economy it’s called “a bubble” and it’s recognized as its own thing and then there’s an argument that sometimes bubbles are not so “bad” and that they might contribute to economic growth (whether we say that economic growth is a good or a bad thing). But again, it’s dubious to me that every instance of a growing economy is 100% a “bubble”.

qsort 5y ago

> some of its fundamental assumptions (that the world is not zero sum) are dubious at best. ??? The world is very decidedly not zero sum, you don't need economics to tell you that. Zero-sum games are a particular case.

ramraj07 5y ago
Can you elaborate how the world is not zero sum? We live in a clearly round planet thats completely isolated except for a daily dose of sunlight. Again this sunlight isn't going to change. You might argue that it's not zero sum for practical purposes, but to me it looks very decidedly zero sum in many different dimensions (usable land, co2 release, fresh water, many minerals, list goes on).
- qsort 5y ago
  onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat. But anyway. Utility isn't measured in amount of land used or CO2 emitted or minerals extracted. This is not a Starcraft game. Using land better increases the sum. Making energy production more efficient increases the sum. Zero-sum means that any of my gains is someone else's loss, which is not how any human society has ever worked. A zero-sum world implies that any form of human cooperation that isn't literally war is impossible, which doesn't empirically seem to be the case.
throwawayzRUU6f 5y ago
The economy as a whole is definitely not a zero-sum game, there's plenty of evidence of that. However, that doesn't in any way invalidate the claim that parts of the economy are in fact zero-sum. How large are those zero-sum parts - 10%? 20%? 40%? 80%? Nobody truly knows. Needless to say, the optimal survival strategy in a world of 80% zero-sum is vastly different than in the 10% world. Also, although there's no data to back it up, I believe the zero-sum games as a proportion of our society are growing, and quite rapidly at that. It's a very worrying trend.

beyondcompute 5y ago

Did someone need to downvote me to disagree with my opinion? What kind of person are they? Now, some points. what economics is a science now Are you kidding? 3D-animation is not a science but you still can understand how it is done and what works better and what doesn’t. Economic life is a physical process that has been observed for quite a while and some patterns appear to have been understood. We may not be right in 100% of cases but the fact is, that consumption has been a crucial factor in (at least) some instances of economic growth in the past. how much can you control the effects of whar you consume other than by controlling how much That’s easy. By choosing alternative products/services. You boycott companies that are not doing too good of a job and support those (“vote with your wallet”) that you believe to be doing better. You might buy vegan patties… That part looks a bit confusing to me. But in my example I was talking about things that I deem “actually relevant to moral questions”. (It depends how you define the term “moral”, I suppose). But to me a life of a sentient being that has individuality trumps many other concerns related to political ideologies, people’s convenience, etc. you only have partial power over it's good-faith nature “Its nature”. I do not think that this part of the argument looks so clearly-defined. What is “partial” versus “non-partial”? To me it’s all “partial” and it’s “good enough”. I’ll take “partial” any day! Besides, in any case you still need to eat and you still need to make those choices. If you really want to keep your hands clean That’s definitely not the ultimate goal or a cornerstone of my ethics or “philosophy”. In general I am fairly concerned with people who pay too much attention to “cleanliness” or “purity”. Not really an argument, just a note. :) more than you absolutely need to for your survival I think, it’s really cruel to expect someone to spend their lives only at physical survival level. People do have needs beyond physical. So it makes it necessary to spend “beyond that level” and therefore it makes this “morally ambiguous act” necessary. But that’s what I said! We are back to a “very general philosophical level” and we are discussing that “(almost) everything is morally ambiguous”. Yes, I agree with that. (But I also think that it’s a fairly useless question compared to a very practical question, “Do we need to consume to make our friends’ parents live longer and happier?”) we absolutely need the economy to grow for continued prosperity Could you define “continued prosperity”? Do you propose to just stay at the same level we are on already? Or do you propose to go back to a level where many people with serious diseases (who depend on high-tech medicine and equipment) to survive every day will not survive? By the way, I was not speaking about “continued prosperity”. I was talking about “better prosperity”. There’s too much suffering in the world currently in my opinion! We need better medical technologies, we need “cultured meat”, we need robotic helpers for old lonely people, we need to make Earth-born life multi-planetary (or multi-space-habitat) otherwise it will be gone in several hundred million years! Again, opinion. Please don’t “argue” with that! preposterous Preposterous means “utterly absurd”. You could argue that the statement is dubious probably. But to call it “absurd” right away… The statement might actually be true. It might actually be “the only way for societies on certain stages”. It's clearly A method I agree with this! Meaning, it might not be the _only_ method. There might be some nano-robots that make stuff for people out of the air and then no one needs to compete and do unpleasant work and everything is so good, yadda yadda. a glorified Ponzi scheme Now that’s actually interesting. Do you have links to any serious works which show that economic growth (in all circumstances) is 100% a Ponzi scheme? Because when there’s such a scheme in an economy it’s called “a bubble” and it’s recognized as its own thing and then there’s an argument that sometimes bubbles are not so “bad” and that they might contribute to economic growth (whether we say that economic growth is a good or a bad thing). But again, it’s dubious to me that every instance of a growing economy is 100% a “bubble”.